If you're a user of Hackulous, an online community that allows iOS users access to cracked apps, you may have noticed that the community has unceremoniously closed its doors as of yesterday. An affiliated web partner index for cracked iPhone apps called Apptrackr has also been disabled. According the people who were operating the communities, lack of activity is the reason they were shut down.

“We are very sad to announce that Hackulous is shutting down,” the team said in a statement.

“After many years, our community has become stagnant and our forums are a bit of a ghost town. It has become difficult to keep them online and well-moderated, despite the devotion of our staff. We’re incredibly thankful for the support we’ve had over the years and hope that new, greater communities blossom out of our absence.”

TorrentFreak reports that it was able to contact a couple people who claim to be familiar with operations at the site who disagree with the statements offered as a reason for the shutdown. According to those two users, the site was healthy and had plenty of users.

The closing of the community also puts into question the viability of Installous, which is software that allowed the installation of cracked apps on Apple devices like the iPhone and iPad.

Excuses? Excuses for what? lol pirating apps? Maybe excuses for someone trying to pirate apps but I don't see what my excuse is? Now you're reaching out of your arse and pulling out anything you find.

All I keep hearing is.

Ignoranceclosed mindednessno intelligence

When I purchased the blacklisting app there were NO refunds and an email to apple only got me a "oh poor you, we will look into it" resonsee LOL with no refund sir."the handfull that don't who gives a crap" ? LOL what kind of logic is that? So you are condoning wasting money? Are you trying to say you are filthy rich to the point that money doesn't matter? I myself don't care about just a single dollar either but multiply that by dozens to hundreds of apps i might want to try in a year and it quickly ads up doesn't it? So you are saying I can only complain if an app cost me a "cosiderable" amount? so a $50 app all of a suddden matters but 50 $1 apps don't? And back to your refund thing, will apple give you a refund if you email them saying "I don't like the app give me my money back"? will they give you a refund if you email saying "hey the app I just downloaded is great and all but I found a better one I would like to have" nopes.... so you are telling me to go lie and tell them I accidentally downloaded the app.... and you want me to use that lie maybe several times a month for different apps I "try"?

ok so you are pointing out different ways people waste money lol so because I leave the tv on in my room when i step into the kitchen to get food that means it must be OK by me to waste even more money on apps? Again I am not made of money like you apparently are :) my oomplaint isn't over a dollar get that through your thick skull, i wouldn't be praising the use of a service just because it could have saved me $1 I am praising a useless service that actually helped save me HUNDREDS of dollars by allowing me for 3 years to try out apps before buying and guess what a lot of what i tried i didn't like and No there were no refunds available for years and there is still no way of TRYING out an app only buying it and hoping you get a redfund even if it takes you lying to apple about your reasoning.

Maybe you already know exactly what type of apps you need and maybe the specific app you want but I am not the same way and neither are MANY of other people especially those less tech savvy like my mom. Back to the $50 navigon gps app.... OK I can buy it and MAYBE ask for a refund today through the app store... but what if I don't know what gps app to get? there is navigon, tomtom, and many others and none of them are exactly cheap what do I do? Download the one with the most stars? Download the one my friend tells me to download? Or in the case of my mom download the very first app that comes up in the search. Or I could do what I did go on hackulous download the 5 highest rated gps apps figure out which one suits me the best and then go buy it off the app store (in my case the winner was navigon hands down). Now $1 doesn't matter to me but putting down a few hundred dollars to try out 5 apps in the hopes that apple will refund all but one of them is pretty ridicilous.

As for your "old version of an app" solution it doesn't apply to everyone and it doesn't apply to me. I don't own a computer therefor I do not have itunes or time machine. I strictly use my phone on it's own and with over the air updates and icloud for contact storage I never need itunes again. I also don't like the time machine feature as I like to back everything up manually on an external HDD that I keep in my safe. I am not also sure how much time machine can help you if apple removes an app off of your device? I had an app that played rap mixtapes that apple decided to not only remove from the app store but delete if off of my device while I was asleep. My Solution? I went on hackulous and downloaded a earlier version that apple never removed from my phone. What if I want an old version of an app that I never had to begin with for time machine to backup?

I understand your reasoning on how you research your apps and it is all really good advice to anyone. I have watched game demos on youtube as well which is definitely the best way to determine if you want a game without playing i, but the same does not always work for other types of apps. On itunes there are plenty of fake and planeted reviews which apple has gotten better at deleting but they are still out there. In the end I am the type of person who HAS to try every app, game, software, etc before I make a decision which the current app store scheme does not allow for. APP A might be 5/5 stars great reviews praise all over forums blah blah but I refuse to buy app A until I have tried app B as well.

I know hackulous was mainly used to pirate free apps, we all know that and if that were the reason for it going away we would all understand that too, but to say that there was no legitimate use for the service is absurd.